MyDailyLife

Testing Text Expander.

2011-01-14T08:46:00.001-06:00

Testing Text Expander. Works great.

New Year-New Device

2011-01-14T08:20:00.001-06:00

The title and footer explain it all.

- Posted via BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Going Mobile

2010-11-05T00:41:00.002-05:00

I decided today to link my mobile phone - a Nokia E63- to the blog to be able to do mobile blogging.

The Hurt Locker- IED EOD Days in Iraq -One to See ASAP

2009-07-11T21:04:00.001-05:00

I saw The Hurt Locker today, the new movie about the Iraq war.
It is an excellent **** film that follows a three man US Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team around Iraq while its leader played by actor Jeremy Renner calmly defuses all sorts of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

For much of the movie, the enemy is unseen, or only suspected. Iraqi civillian men with cellular phones and video cameras watch the main characters team intently in several scenes. One of of them may or may not hold the phone that can trigger a nearby IED.
When the EOD team is drawn out of the city on a mission to the desert they finally encounter insurgents. A long range sniper duel ensues and the EOD team gets a taste of blood literally and figuratively during the battle.
It is not at all what they expected.
The Hurt Locker is similar to Gunner Palace, The Kingdom and Blown Away, so if you enjoyed those movies, you'll probably enjoy The Hurt Locker as well.

Book on the Bus: Gang Leader for a Day By Sudhir Venkatesh

2009-05-14T17:08:00.001-05:00

During my commute to work by bus each day, I use part of the trip to read a book. Usually an eBook on my Palm TX PDA

This month I'm reading Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh

I bought it from eReader.com

Not Daily, that's for sure

2009-04-15T19:25:00.001-05:00

My plan for this blog was to post something everyday, however that clearly hasn't happened.
Time to change the name of the blog.

And I'll try to post more often as well.

DVD's of the week from Netflix

2008-08-15T10:11:00.003-05:00

DVD's of the week. The Take an armored car heist flick from 2007 staring John Leguizamo and 30 days Season2 disk 1, the cable TV show with Morgan Spurlock. The disc has 3 episodes.

Chaos Theory- Great GTD Comedy Movie

2008-04-13T16:46:00.001-05:00

I saw Chaos Theory at the movie theater this weekend.
It is a hilarious, but at times bleak comedy about a David Allen-like lecturer on time management named Frank Allen (Ryan Reynolds) who has some life changing experiences after his wife (Emily Mortimer) sets back the time on the clock that runs his perfectly micromanaged life.

Once Frank embraces randomness and chaos, he learns about the positive aspects of constant change.
Worth seeing 4/4stars

Stars Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer, Stuart Townsend
Written by Daniel Taplitz, Directed by Marcos Siega
http://www.chaostheorymovie.com

Technorati Tags: GTD movie,David Allen,comedy,movie,Ryan Reynolds,Randomness,change,chaos

My Kid Could Paint That -DVD Review

2008-04-12T20:58:00.001-05:00

'The Art lies in the declaration itself'
Michael Kimmelman, an art critic explaining what modern art is - from a dvd extra included with 'My Kid Could Paint That' the 2007 documentary by Amir Bar-Lev about a 4year old artist from upstate New York named Marla Olmstead, her family and her rise to fame, fortune and controversy.
The first half of the film explores her discovery and rise as an art phenomenon.
The second half explores controversy about the authenticity of her work. Was it all her own, or was she helped by her parents?
A fascinating documentary about art, truth, celebrity and our times.
The DVD extras are highly informative about the workings of the modern art world and are well worth watching.

I rented it from Netflix
http://www.netflix.com

My Netflix rating 5/5
Standard rating:4/4

Related Links:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/mykidcouldpaintthat/
http://www.marlaolmstead.com/

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Posted via MaemoWordPy

Technorati Tags: Documentary,Netflix,DVD

iPod Minimalism- From 20GB to 1GB

2008-03-26T08:57:00.011-05:00

A couple of years ago, my company gave everyone iPods for Christmas.
I've been using mine reliably for listening to Podcasts during my commute to work.

My 20GB hard drive based ipod must have taken a tumble that I didn't notice while it was in my Timbuk2 messenger bag.

On Sunday night when I went to sync- I heard the Click of Death.

I've followed the Apple Support page instructions for resetting the iPod, but they haven't worked so far.

A year ago we received Best Buy Gift cards during the holiday season.

I bought a 1GB iPod Shuffle and a DLO Power Bug spare charger
with the intent of using the Shuffle when working out at the gym I planned to join.

I haven't joined that gym yet, but I'm glad I bought the Shuffle.

I've been dragging and dropping podcasts one at a time into the shuffle to not run out of space.
I'd already loaded my best of list of my favorite music from my collection which turned out to be less than 500MB.

So now I'm taking a minimalist approach to podcasts. I'm not carrying my whole library anymore.

The shuffle is working out great so far. It is much lighter weight and it takes up much less space in my bag or pocket.

Now I need to decide if the 20GB iPod is worth fixing or replacing.

But that's a task for another day.

Today I Bought a Thermos

2008-03-12T09:11:00.001-05:00

I've been buying bottles of socially responsible Ethos Water http://www.ethoswater.com from Starbucks
http://www.starbucks.com for at least a year.

After reading this article
http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/red-031108-chemical-main,0,2244086.story in the RedEye yesterday,
my bottled water began tasting of plastic.
Or maybe I just began noticing what was there all along.

Today I decided to replace my disposable plastic bottle with a stainless steel solution:
The classic Thermos Bottle http://www.thermos.com.
I bought the 17.5oz bullet shaped model
http://www.thermos.com/product_catalog.aspx?CatCode=NISS&SubcategoryID=1
at Walgreens http://www.walgreens.com and plan to use it to take my own hot coffee or tea to work.

In addition to being a healthier container, I should also save money by buying less soda.

I'm also thinking about buying a stainless steel water bottle made by Klean Kanteen
http://www.kleankanteen.com.

Technorati Tags: Thermos,health,water

WiFi as N810 GPS POI- Simply Fantastic

2008-03-09T16:40:00.001-05:00

I went for a walk today and decided to test out the Global Positioning System (aka GPS) capabilities of my Nokia N810 for the first time. I've never used GPS before.

In addition to displaying my latitude, longitude, speed when in motion and current location on a map, it is also possible to view Points of Interest- POI.

I picked a few POI categories back when I got the N810 but when it was still too cold to go out and test the GPS.

Today as I walked I saw where a number of wifi hotspots are, in places I had never known had WiFi before. That could be very useful when traveling or mobileblogging on the go.

Technorati Tags: GPS,WiFi,Hotspot, N810,POI

Canola2 : Gone in 60 Seconds

2008-03-06T08:34:00.001-06:00

After a few tries, I installed Canola2 and three related apps on my Nokia N810 on Wednesday.

After launching it, I was immediately impressed with the graphics- it looks great, almost like an Apple iPhone application.

I wanted to use it for autodownloading podcasts.
The main screen featured nice, large buttons designed for fingertip use, again very iPhoney. One for Music, another for Videos and the third Photos.

What the? No Podcast button?

Instead, logically, the Podcast setup is found behind the Music button. From what I had heard about Podcast support, I was expecting a Podcast button on the main screen.

I setup a feed for The Onion Radio News, one of my favorites. I used the N810 web browser to get the URL.
I was unhappily surprised that I could not Copy & Paste the URL into Canola2, but had to manually type it in after app switching to be sure it was right.

This is ok for short URLs but would be a pain for long ones.
I pressed return/enter and Canola2 spun a little loop to show it was working and then feed name appeared above a list of 5 or 6 recent episodes. Small downward pointing arrows at the right to Download each.
Looks good.

But no apparent download time scheduler or 'get all' buttton or sync functonality as in iTunes. Perhaps in a hidden menu I just can't find. I didn't RTFM. I expected intuitive ease of use.

I clicked one Download button and nothing happens. Tried another- the same.

No download progress indicator or thermometer to show progress. Not good.

Unless it wasn't working.

No error messages, however.

I also installed a related app called Canola2 Cleanup.
In the Applicaton Manager it is only described as an 'Installation clean up utility' Kind of redundant, and not helpful or informative as to what this app actually does.

Bad description.

Maybe software developers know clearly what that means.
But this is software for a Consumer device. Non dev dudes will be using these apps as well.

The slick graphical interface is so much nicer than the more developer/ programmer oriented command line so this is a sign to me that this is a Consumer application.

So I launched Canola2 Cleanup. Nothing apparent as to what it does from the main screen.

But there is an Execute button.

I clicked it and the app ran.

Turns out Cleanup means Uninstall.

Canola2 was gone in 60 seconds.

I'll have to re download it and try again another day.
___
Posted using MaemoWordPy.

Technorati Tags: N810,Canola2,MaemoWordPy,

N810 App Adventures

2008-03-04T08:43:00.002-06:00

I installed Claws Mail last Friday but haven't been able to get it to work just yet.

The builtin Nokia email app likewise isn't working yet.

Luckily webmail works.

I tried to install the Canola media player this morning but the install thermometer never indicates a complete download over the air. I'll keep trying.

I'd like to be able to download podcasts the the microSD card I bought recently. I understand Canola can do that.

The N810 is great for online streaming using the builtin Internet Radio desktop applet. I've been listening to the BBC News Summary each morning and the stream of the BBC World Service while doing weekend chores.

But the Internet Radio applet is only good at a wifi hotspot.

I want to listen to podcasts offline using the N810.

The builtin RSS Reader app shows and allows download of audio enclosures but so far as I can tell, does not auto download feeds like a podcast aggregator - the Juice Receiver
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/ - for example.

So I'll try again tomorrow to get Canola.

Technorati Tags: Podcasts, Canola, Juice Receiver, Claws Mail

MaemoWordPy test post

2008-03-03T09:19:00.001-06:00

This is a test post using MaemoWordPy on my Nokia N810.
I discovered that in Account Preferences, the username must be in lower case, and leave off the @gmail.com domain segment.

Founding Post - March 2008

2008-03-02T15:31:00.007-06:00

Welcome to my new blog all about My Daily Life in the 21st Century.
I was planning to do my first post using MaemoWordPy from my Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, but MWPy hasn't worked just yet.
So instead I'm posting using the Mozilla based built-in web browser.

So far, so good.

More to follow.